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The dusty gods are made out of sand and pollen,
colored sand and different kinds of pollen
according to their nature, it is their nature
that determines what they are made out of,
what they are made out of does not determine their nature.

Sand and pollen have made the dusty gods,
with wind and sunlight they have been making these gods,
it has taken forever, that’s why these gods are immortal.

Now I wipe away the sand and pollen, look, now the dusty gods are gone,
you will have forgotten about them before my song ends, look!

Amid the high stratus clouds
In the house made of dawn
In the house that was raised at dawn,
Upon the road lit by the dawn,

Talking God needs a singer, and I am he!
He walks, and it is my feet that walk;
My limbs are become his limbs,
My body, his body,

My mind, his mind,
And he speaks, and it is my voice that speaks;
And the fierce plumes of his plumed helmet,
They nod above my head, above his head.

Beautiful what lies before him, which lies also before me;
Beautiful what comes behind him, and also behind me;
Beautiful, all that lies below, all that rises above,
Beautiful, everything on every side, beautiful!

As his voice is sacred, and of the most sacred, as pollen, and is beautiful,
So does my voice become most sacred, and beautiful,
And thus in beauty it is done;
In beauty it is done.

It has lasted eight days before
the four singers,after long and tedious instruction by the shaman,
come outto sing this song.

Five hundred people are, perhaps, assembled
to witness the public ceremonies
of the night;

some have come
from the most distant partsof the wide
Navajoterritory; all are preparedto hold their vigil until dawn.

A score or more of critics are in the audience
who know the song by heart and arealert to discover errors.
It is a long song,
and consists almost exclusively of
meaninglessor archaicvocableswhich convey no idea tothe mind of the singer. Yet notonesyllable
may be forgottenormisplaced.Ifthe slightest error is made,it is at once proclaimed by the assembled critics,

the fruitless ceremony comes to an end, and

the five hundred disappointed spectatorsdisperse.
Butfortunatelythey are not as particular with all their songs
as they are
with this.